


Make It A Challenge

by infinite_wonders



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Humor, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mutual Pining, Prompt Fic, Rin and Sousuke being Awkward Together, Rin being Awkward, Romance, Sousuke being Awkward, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2488919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_wonders/pseuds/infinite_wonders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Prompt/Ask Box Fic: Two miserable people meeting at a wedding! AU. </p>
<p>Sousuke tries for a smile, though he quickly deems it a failure when Rin’s frown deepens and Sousuke gets a glimpse of sharp teeth.</p>
<p>“Can I help you?” Rin asks, his tone heavily implying that no, he isn’t actually planning on helping Sousuke and if he could kindly scram off and let him sulk in peace that would be fantastic, thanks.</p>
<p>Sousuke likes him already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make It A Challenge

**Author's Note:**

> So...this was originally a Tumblr prompt which was sent to me by this [lovely person](http://dramaticalkouao.tumblr.com/) and I loved the idea so much I couldn't help but to fill it. Unfortunately, what started off as a 500 word drabble quickly grew into a two-thousand word monster and...yeah. Posted the fic on here since it's much easier to read here than [my tumblr account](http://mermansousuke.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Anyway, happy reading! I apologize for any errors in advance!

There are too many flowers in the venue than Sousuke is entirely comfortable with.

He tries to keep at least a meter distance between himself and the chrysanthemums, but the church is crowded and despite Sousuke’s best efforts, his pollen allergy makes an unwanted and very much uninvited return.

Sousuke finds himself stuck between his mother and a disgruntled older gentleman in the third pew and with each passing minute, with more people continuing to trickle in, it becomes increasingly apparent that Sousuke cannot escape to go find tissues or just excuse himself from the whole ceremony altogether, as had been his original plan. 

By the time the traditional bride march begins playing, Sousuke has long resigned himself to sit through the rest of the ceremony. His constant sniffling draws a few sympathetic glances his way and, god, Sousuke really hopes they don’t think he’s really crying at this person’s wedding. 

To be honest, he’s not even entirely sure who the bride is, just that she’s some family friend of his parents. Sousuke vaguely remembers his mother chattering something about how this was her second marriage, how exciting it was that she could find happiness again since her previous husband’s death, which Sousuke supposes is nice and touching but he’d be lying if he said he cared beyond that.

Why his parents felt the need to drag him to this wedding too is, and continues to be, a complete mystery to him. He’s only maybe met the woman once or twice and that was when he was probably six. Probably.

“Sousuke, look,” his mother whispers to him, and Sousuke makes a conscious effort to look engaged in the ceremony despite his general peevishness at being there.

Vague recognition flits through him when he catches sight of the bride. He remembers, in the kind of indistinct way that comes with long forgotten memories, that she’d brought over a fruit basket once, when his father had fallen ill from an unknown sickness. She’d been nice, Sousuke remembers, very motherly. His own mother had mentioned something about her children being in attendance, and Sousuke fleetingly wonders how they feel about their mother getting remarried. 

“Oh, there’s Gou and Rin!” His mother says, tugging on his arm lightly to get his attention. She inclines her head forward and Sousuke follows her gaze obediently, if a bit reluctantly. He assumes she’s talking about the two siblings leading the congregation, their identical red hair a tip off to their relation to one another. 

His mother clicks her tongue quietly, mindful of the other guests, “That Rin. He should be smiling! His mother’s getting married and he’s making that kind of face…”

When Sousuke turns to look, however, Rin’s face is already angled away, red hair curtaining his current expression. By the time Rin takes his place by the other groomsmen, whatever expression he’d been making has been wiped cleaned, replaced with a kind of pained neutrality that Sousuke can’t help but think doesn’t fit the redhead at all. 

His idle musings slide away like water when the bride reaches the altar and the ceremony begins, Sousuke’s attention fast waning in tandem with the dull monotone of the priest. 

He doesn’t think about the redhead again until after the wedding.

***

The reception, much like the wedding, is a dull affair.

The only saving grace is that Sousuke can sniffle in peace here without garnering worried glances. The food isn’t half bad either.

His parents have long abandoned the table, leaving Sousuke to sulk in peace with his empty plate and plastic utensils. He’s just about to see how far he can flip his fork by its tongs when something red flashes in his peripheral vision, catching his attention. 

The bride’s son, Rin, is sitting at the table adjacent to him, head bent low as he fiddles with his own utensils, food practically untouched. 

Sousuke stares, taking in his dull red eyes and his downturned lips, how his whole body language practically screams of wanting to be anywhere but there.

He looks absolutely miserable. 

Sousuke’s body moves on autopilot and before he’s quite figured out what’s happening or what he’s going to do or what he’s going to say, he finds himself standing in front of the sullen redhead, two champagne glasses in hand. Rin looks up then, half startled, half annoyed, eyebrows knitting together when he has to crane his neck up to look Sousuke in the eye. 

Sousuke tries for a smile, though he quickly deems it a failure when Rin’s frown deepens and Sousuke gets a glimpse of sharp teeth. 

“Can I help you?” Rin asks, his tone heavily implying that no, he isn’t actually planning on helping Sousuke and if he could kindly scram off and let him sulk in peace that would be fantastic, thanks. 

Sousuke likes him already. 

“Mind if I sit here?” Sousuke asks, forcing back a smile when Rin’s eyebrows shoot up, obviously questioning Sousuke’s ability to read social cues, or lack thereof. He can’t blame him since Sousuke wouldn’t normally find himself in this type of situation to begin with, but something about the redhead makes him want to be impulsive for once, just to see what will happen. “You look like you could use a drink.”

“Or five,” Rin mutters under his breath; Sousuke’s almost positive he wasn’t meant to hear that, but he’ll let it slide, for the redhead’s sake. With an exasperated sigh, Rin gestures to the seat beside him, “Yeah, sure. Do whatever you want.”

Sousuke takes the seat next to Rin, stretching his legs out comfortably underneath the table. He slides the champagne glass over, watching as red eyes track his movements cautiously, like Sousuke’s going to attack him at any given moment, “Here.”

Rin nods his thanks, carefully taking the glass and eyeing the liquid inside disdainfully. 

“I didn’t poison it,” Sousuke points out helpfully, relishing in the sideways glare Rin shoots him. 

The redhead doesn’t break eye contact when he takes his first swallow, an unspoken challenge that Sousuke would have risen to if he weren’t so captivated with the way Rin’s throat bobbed with the movement. He’d loosen his tie since the ceremony, giving Sousuke a clear view of the skin there and how the lines around his neck were slightly red and chafed from his shirt collar. Sousuke wants to smooth his fingers over the lines, wondering if his skin is just as soft as it looked, even mostly hidden beneath his clothes.

Rin clears his throat pointedly and Sousuke snaps his gaze back to Rin’s face, guilty at being caught staring so shamelessly. The redhead looks torn between being affronted and flattered, though in the end, he seems to settle on curious. 

“Are you even old enough to drink?” Sousuke asks to break the silence, wincing when he realizes the stupidity of his own question, already knowing the answer before Rin gives one. 

“You’re asking this now?” He snaps, incredulous. And, yeah, Sousuke set himself up for that one, though he can’t help but notice how Rin doesn’t exactly deny it, either. 

Sousuke looks away, flustered. He’s not good at small talk, never has been and probably never will be. For the first time, and most likely not the last time, Sousuke wonders what compelled him to come over and talk to the bride’s son. 

He takes a sip of his own champagne for lack of something better to do, hooking a finger around his collar uncomfortably. It feels as though the temperature in the room has risen an exponential amount in the small amount of time he’s been sitting here and for some reason, he knows Rin is to blame for this.

When he chances a glance back, Rin is looking a lot less wary and a lot more curious, interested in Sousuke in a way he hadn’t been when Sousuke had first asked to sit down. Sousuke takes this as a good sign.

“So,” Rin says, all toothy grin and cocksure attitude, a complete one-eighty of the broody, unhappy Rin of before. “You got a name?”

“Yamazaki Sousuke,” Sousuke says. “You’re…Rin, right?”

“Matsuoka Rin,” he confirms, extending his hand in such a western gesture that Sousuke flounders for a moment before going to grasp it. 

Warmth is the first thing he registers when his hand touches Rin’s, a shock of something pleasant shooting from their conjoined hands to the length of Sousuke’s spine, making him shiver involuntarily. 

“Yamazaki Sousuke,” Rin repeats. “That sounds familiar. Have we met before?”

Sousuke shrugs, “Probably not. I’m not from here.” 

“Oh?” Rin makes a curious noise, head tilting in a way that Sousuke can’t help but find a little bit endearing. “Where are you from?”

“Tokyo.”

“Tokyo!” Rin says, awed. “Bet Iwatobi is a bit boring compared to big city Tokyo, huh?” 

“A bit,” Sousuke agrees. 

“But Iwatobi has a better ocean view, don’t you think? Less city lights and distractions.”

“I guess. I prefer swimming in the indoor pool, though.” Sousuke realizes belatedly that one, he did not actually answer Matsuoka’s question about the ocean, and two, he is a terrible small talker, made obvious by the way Rin continues to keep the conversation flowing even in the face of Sousuke’s short answers. 

Despite Sousuke’s change of subject, Rin lights up, seeming to latch onto the information like a moth to a flame, “You swim? Competitively?”

“Yeah,” Sousuke replies, surprised. “Do you?”

Rin nods, grinning, “I do! What do you swim? Backstroke? Breaststroke?”

“Butterfly,” he says. “I swim the front crawl sometimes, but my specialty is the butterfly.”

Rin’s eyes get even brighter if that’s possible, and he’s leaning forward like an eager puppy. 

“That’s crazy, I swim the butterfly, too! I’m not half-bad at the front crawl, either,” Rin says, all easy confidence and excited energy. His excitement is infectious, and Sousuke finds himself leaning forward too, their knees brushing under the table. “That’s why your name sounded familiar! If you swim competitively, then I’ve probably seen you at tournaments, right? We may have even swum in adjoining lanes.” 

“Maybe,” Sousuke hums, smirking around the lip of his champagne glass. “I’m pretty fast, though.”

A pause.

“Are you insinuating that you’re faster than me?” Rin asks, offended. When Sousuke does nothing but sip at his drink, Rin’s eyes narrow into slits, bristling. Rin shoots forward until him and Sousuke are nose to nose, his expression determined. “Is that a challenge, Yamazaki?” 

“Well, I am ranked number six in Japan for the butterfly.”

Rin’s eyebrows shoot up, seeming impressed despite himself. Sousuke can’t help but feel the slightest bit smug. 

“Well, I—“

Before he can reply, however, Sousuke’s phone buzzes obnoxiously loud in his pocket, startling them both. Rin blinks owlishly at him for a few seconds before he seems to take note of their proximity; it’s almost comical how fast the redhead jumps back, eyes wide, sputtering gibberish and apologies that Sousuke doesn’t even try to decipher. 

Sousuke fishes out his cell while Rin babbles next to him, quickly reading the text before sliding his phone shut with a sigh, listening to Rin’s incoherencies dwindle off into silence. 

“Everything okay?” Rin asks finally, worry evident in his tone despite the fact that they’d only officially met ten minutes ago. 

“Fine,” Sousuke answers curtly, feeling a pang of guilt when he sees Rin flinch minutely. It’s not Rin’s fault his parents had shitty timing. “My parents are waiting outside. We have a long drive tomorrow.”

“I see,” Rin says, sounding disappointed. He’s fiddling with his fork again and Sousuke knows he can’t leave it like this, not when it’s so obvious that there’s something there between them. 

Sousuke doesn’t believe in fate or anything like that, but when he sees a pen lying innocuously on the table a foot away from him, he’s tempted to start visiting their local shrine religiously. 

Stretching forward, he snatches the pen off the table, nearly dropping it in his haste to grab it. When he gestures for Rin to give him his hand, Rin does so willingly, if uncomprehendingly. 

After he’s finished writing on the palm of Rin’s hand, Sousuke’s about to stand up and leave, is ready to leave, when a sudden idea strikes him and he’s leaning forward impulsively, lips near the shell of the redhead’s ear as he whispers, “Make it a challenge, Matsuoka.” 

He stands then, shoving his hands in his pockets as he turns to leave. When he looks over his shoulder to steal one last glance at Matsuoka, he’s blushing to the tips of his ears, gaping, Sousuke’s phone number scribbled neatly onto the palm of his hand. 

Sousuke allows himself a smug grin, turning around before the redhead catches him staring again.

This expression suited Rin much better in Sousuke’s opinion.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I wrote this in about half an hour so please forgive me if it's terrible. I was a little overeager to fill the prompt. As always, feedback and comments are appreciated and prompts/ideas are always welcome!
> 
> You can reach me here [(x)](http://mermansousuke.tumblr.com/).
> 
> See you next water time!


End file.
